Letter: Politics has always had place at board table

Posted:
02/24/2014 06:40:29 PM MST

The "Next Front in Partisan Battle" article this past Sunday lacks some historical perspective. For some to state that public education has been historically nonpartisan and only recently so is less than accurate. Partisanship is simply inherent in the formation of locally elected boards.

Take seven dedicated people and put them on a committee, present them with the facts regarding a problem, and charge them with the responsibility to find a solution. What happens? They come up with numerous opinions on how to achieve the objective. This outcome is simply a result of members holding differing belief systems/guiding principles. People's actions are a result of how they view the world and the guiding principles they hold.

The article implies that this is a new or recent phenomenon and is only something that conservatives do. Is it really possible to execute a decision process absent of personal guiding principles? The cliché of "it is all about the children" infers this very notion.

If your belief is that "education is best controlled and directed at the Federal level" as compared to "education is best managed at the state level with significant discretion at the local school board level" you will come to very different conclusions as to "what is best for the children". Everyone, including those who do not consider themselves conservative, makes decisions consistent with their belief system.

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Each candidate ran and clearly explained their guiding principles to the electorate. Now that they are elected we should equally demand that they exercise their principles with consistency. A candidate who claims a set of beliefs (principles) and then violates them in action, we call a hypocrite. If the results delivered are judged to be inadequate, then next election cycle we might choose candidates with a different set of guiding principles.

Actually, that is exactly what happened in November and why we have elections.